I read with interest yesterday’s report in the Lancethighlighting the spiralling global costs of cancer treatment, with 12 million people diagnosed with cancer worldwide costing £185bn ($295bn) per year. The report goes on to say that most developed countries are spending between 4% and 7% of their healthcare budgets just on treating cancer.

NGS (next gen sequencing) can help in the delivery of personalised medicine and the understanding of disease – no doubt in my mind. But like all the things that have gone before – HTS (high throughput screening), Combinatorial Chemistry, molecular modelling – it is not a silver bullet – but a tool that can be used to aid the cause. Alone it cannot solve the problem.

We have seen it over and over again – a new tech / method / thingamabob that will solve all problems. In the Wild West they called it snake oil and we know what that means!

IDBS’ Enterprise Customers range from global enterprises to academic research institutions. When we work with our customers to document their implementation experiences we hear a similar story, regardless of the industry sector or size of the organization. They all expected IDBS to be a cost effective, robust and secure R&D data management solution, but they also cite the following as additional benefits accruing to their decision to select IDBS over other software providers:

President Obama signed the America Invents Act into Law last Friday. So it’s all change at the USPTO and with a handy 15% increase in fees too. But what does it mean to researchers, R&D organizations and their potential blockbuster data?

The days of simply time-stamping the constituent parts of potentially valuable IP and piecing it all together, at some point down the line, are gone. You need to combine the disparate pieces of your invention together, qualify and internally examine it …fast!

I’ve really enjoyed seeing the Cancer Research UK Stratified Medicine Programme getting so much coverage around the globe. This initiative will blaze the trail for the wider adoption of genetic testing to support diagnosis and treatment of various cancers including breast, colorectal, lung, prostate, ovarian and skin cancer.

The 2 year program will see 9,000 samples and associated clinical data systematically captured and genetically tested for known cancer variants with a view to building a comprehensive warehouse of cancer data. This will then form a research resource to better understand the genetic basis for diagnosis and disease treatment, and in the future support clinical decision-making.